The first Picturephone test system, built in 1956, was crude -
it transmitted an image only once every two seconds. But by 1964
a complete experimental system, the "Mod 1," had been developed. To test it, the
public was invited to place calls between special exhibits at Disneyland and the
New York World's Fair. In both locations, visitors were carefully interviewed
afterward by a market research agency.

People, it turned out, didn't like Picturephone. The equipment was too bulky,
the controls too unfriendly, and the picture too small. But the Bell System was
convinced that Picturephone was viable. Trials went on for six more years. In
1970, commercial Picturephone service debuted in downtown
Pittsburgh and AT&T executives confidently predicted that a million Picturephone
sets would be in use by 1980.

What happened? Despite its improvements, Picturephone was still big, expensive,
and uncomfortably intrusive. It was only two decades later, with improvements in
speed, resolution, miniaturization, and the incorporation of Picturephone into
another piece of desktop equipment, the computer, that the promise of a personal
video communication system was realized.

Also, there are pamphlets on the Picturephone that you can
download that are at the bottom of this page.

We Offer Personalized One-On-One
Service!

Call Us Today at (651) 787-DIAL (3425)

1950’s

The Bell System
(AT&T/Western Electric) PicturePhone (developed in Bell Labs as a prototype
in 1956 (see photo above), but never test marketed until the early 1960's) never became popular
after it was briefly offered commercially in Chicago. If it had, it is doubtful
that it could have been implemented on a wide scale given the technology of the
time. This was, after all, before the days of microprocessors and data
compression. Digital telecommunications was in its infancy.

The PicturePhone was connected to the Central Office via 3 standard wire pairs
(for comparison, a regular telephone line uses a single wire pair). One pair
carried the 1 MHz PicturePhone video signal in one direction, the other carried
video the in the opposite direction. These had to be specially equalized to
carry the signal but were still otherwise just ordinary telephone wire. The
third pair carried the normal 2-way voice call plus carried the TouchTone
dialing to set up the call.

A PicturePhone
Central Office had a second switch (an electromechanical "crossbar"
switch in those days!) operating in parallel to the regular switch for those
making PicturePhone calls. That takes care of local calls.

The fun comes when a
call has to be connected to someone served via another Central Office. Telephone
calls are multiplexed together to go from one office to another. Many calls
share the same communications system whether microwave, coaxial cable, or
(nowadays) fiber optic is the medium. Even when offices are connected via
ordinary wire pairs many calls share the same wires. A voice channel is allotted
only 3000 Hz (this is after all telephony, not 20,000 Hz high-fidelity audio!)
for each direction. But a PicturePhone video signal takes 1,000,000 Hz. That's
333 times the bandwidth! A few video calls would fill up all available
bandwidth. How could they possibly have handled it? Necessity is the mother of
invention so in all likelihood they would have invented video data compression
in a big hurry! After all, Bell Labs was working on digital audio as far back as
WWII. (You should see the electron beam CODEC tube of 1947!)

The Bell System
estimated three million PicturePhone units would be operating in homes and
offices by the mid-1980s, bringing in a combined revenue of $5 billion a year.
Initial reaction to PicturePhone had been very positive. However, these positive
marketing reactions were soon dampened by the realities of cost and the
hesitation of people to be accidentally seen by others in the private affairs of
their homes. AT&T abandoned its plans to market the Mod II in 1973.

1960’s

From the 1993 Telephone Story Poster.

"A logical extension of today's
telephone service...BELL SYSTEM INTRODUCES PICTUREHONE SERVICE...
both ends of telephone conversation are pictures; people phone by
appointment from family-type booths in attended centers. Bell System
PICTUREPHONE service now lets callers see as well as talk on the
telephone. And 'hands free if they wish'. For the first time people can
make a visual telephone call to another city-the latest example of the
research, invention and development that are constantly providing the
communications we provide. The new service is being offered in the cities
listed are the left. Bell Systems attendants at each local center help
callers enjoy prearranged face to face visits with friends and relatives
in either of the other cities." (the cities are New York,
Chicago, Washington)

1964 World's Fair in New
York - Visitors used "PicturePhone" instruments, developed by
the Bell Telephone Laboratories, that transmitted voice and image between
two nearby booths. Click on picture for link to Bell System's Pavilion
info. People lined up to make PicturePhone calls to a corresponding
exhibit at Disneyland. First Lady Ladybird Johnson even stopped by to try
it out.

The next two images on this
page and their original captions have been donated by Science Service and
are presented to you as they appeared in period publications. The captions
were written by Science Service journalists and have been transcribed
exactly. Although these images are protected by copyright, we encourage
you to use them for academic and non-commercial pursuits. -
The
National Museum of American History.

PICTUREPHONE CIRCUIT PACKAGES

CD 1967085 E&MP130.011

Joseph A. Mazzeo of Bell Telephone Laboratories removes one of the circuit
packages in the experimental PICTUREPHONE system.

The comparatively small size of the visual telephone, the PICTUREPHONE is
made possible by the development of modern circuits using transistors and
other miniature components.

MOD
I (Model one) version - From the 1965 "The Telephone Story"
poster

MOD II (Model two) version
- From the 1969 "The Telephone Story" poster

"Someday you'll
be a star!" was one of the advertising slogans the Bell System used decades
ago to try to promote this high tech and futuristic communications device called
the "PicturePhone". But no matter how much the Bell System
tried, it was one of the most visible flops in communications technology
history.

Thomas
Farley, webmaster of the Private Line web site, has
recently found a picture of what he thinks is a NTT picture phone circa
1968, complete with rotary dial:

Here are
some photos sent from Bill Romanowski of
his Picturephones (possible Bell Lab prototypes)

1990

’s

Click HERE to
read article in the February 1993 issue of
AT&T's FOCUS magazine on this VideoPhone model 2500.

In 1992 AT&T
introduced the VideoPhone 2500, the world’s first colour videophone that
could transmit over analog telephone lines. Its prices
started at US$1,500 and later dropped to $1,000. Unlike the earlier
Picturephones, the VideoPhone 2500 employed
digital compression methods to enable a significant reduction of
the bandwidth required for full-motion video transmission. A V.34 modem was
employed to transmit the compressed video signal over an analog telephone
line for access to the PSTN, where the signal could be readily circuited
through central-office switches. Depending on the quality of the
telephone line, the VideoPhone 2500 transmitted at either 19.2 or
16.8 kilobits per second. The video compression algorithm employed in the
VideoPhone 2500 was licensed to a number of Japanese manufacturers for
employment in similar videophones. Nevertheless, lack of sales led AT&T to
discontinue the VideoPhone 2500 in 1995.

The
Air Force is testing video telephones at locations both in the United States
and overseas to provide "video morale calls" for deployed members.

"I have never
seen a better morale booster," was the report of one Air Force first
sergeant during a recent test of video telephone technology at Incirlik AB,
Turkey.

The video phone
concept is actually more than four decades old, but new low-cost technologies
are providing the Air Force a rare opportunity to permit families and deployed
airmen to be able to see, as well as talk, to one another.

The idea behind
the video telephone system presently being examined by the Air Force was
succinctly stated in the 1960's print advertisement of Western
Electric-"crossing a telephone with a TV set." The Western Electric
advertisement showed the less-than-successful PicturePhone system which it
produced in cooperation with AT&T's Bell Laboratories.

Years before,
engineers at Bell Laboratories began discussing the concept of simultaneous
transmission of video and voice over telephone lines in the 1920's.

In 1927, the Bell
Telephone System sent live television images of Herbert Hoover, then Secretary
of Commerce, over telephone lines from Washington, D.C. to an auditorium in
Manhattan, N.Y. This was the first public demonstration in the United States
of long-distance video transmission.

The first "PicturePhone"
was completed by Bell Laboratory engineers in 1956. This first system was
crude and cumbersome and required three standard wire pairs to operate: one
pair to carry the video transmission, one pair to carry video reception, and
the third to carry the audio signal. Requiring 1,000,000 Hertz of bandwidth,
the PicturePhone video signal exceeded by more than 300 times the bandwidth
allotted to a typical telephone voice signal.

By 1964, a
somewhat improved version of the PicturePhone, dubbed the "Mod 1,"
had been developed and was debuted at the New York World's Fair. To test
public reaction to the PicturePhone, visitors were invited to place calls
between special exhibits of the PicturePhone at the World's Fair and
Disneyland.

Survey results
indicated that most people did not like PicturePhone. The controls were
awkward and the picture was small. Moreover, most people were not comfortable
with the idea of being seen during a phone conversation.

However, the
system's developers at Bell Laboratories were convinced that PicturePhone was
viable and could find a market. AT&T inaugurated commercial PicturePhone
service between New York City, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., June 24, 1964,
with a call from Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Linden Johnson, in
Washington; to Dr. Elizabeth A. Wood of Bell Laboratories in New York City.

A three-minute
PicturePhone call from Washington to New York City cost $16. The most
expensive connection, between New York City and Chicago, cost $27 for three
minutes. This inaugural PicturePhone service never caught the attention of
consumers.

AT&T continued
to believe in the viability of PicturePhone. With the beginning of commercial
PicturePhone service in Pittsburgh in 1970, AT&T executives predicted that
Picturephones would be in use in more than a million settings by 1980. Their
estimates were far off the mark. Consumers were still not ready for
PicturePhone, finding it too big, too expensive, and, for many, too intrusive.

In January 1992,
AT&T executives again predicted the success of a videophone system with
the introduction of the AT&T VideoPhone 2500-the first full-color, home
video phone system to use standard home telephone lines.

During the
system's debut, Robert Kavner, AT&T group executive for AT&T
Communications Products, said, "This is the way people want to
communicate. The time is right. The price is right. The technology is
right."

AT&T
executives reported that the video phone would become as popular as cordless
and cellular phones. Yet, a large market has yet to be found.

According to the
calculations of telecommunications author Stephen J. Maudsley, the great
decrease in the cost of video telephones is due to the continued development
of silicon technology. Maudsley reports the cost of a video telephone in the
1960's was nearly $500,000. The AT&T VideoPhone 2500 was introduced in
1992 at a cost of approximately $1500 and within a year was selling for less
than $1000. The video telephone system being tested by the Air Force sells for
about $500 for each unit. This dramatic increase in savings, according to
Maudsley, comes from two areas-the integration of functions and the
compression of images-associated with the continued decrease in the size of
electronic devices.

The functions
required for video phone operation have been integrated onto fewer pieces of
silicon. This is a direct result of the decrease in the size of component
transistors. During the early period of video telephone development, the
smallest feature on a silicon chip was about 10 microns. Currently, silicon
chips are being manufactured with features as small as .3 microns.

Video compression
ratios have also improved to increase the rate of image transmission from
PicturePhone's one frame every two seconds to the present state-of-the-art 20
frames per second. By comparison, broadcast television transmits at 30 frames
per second.

Now, video
telephones have taken two distinct venues. Seemingly, the larger share of the
industry was concentrating its efforts in personal computer-based systems, or
desktop video teleconferencing technology, which requires computer networks.
The smaller effort was aimed at the video phone-through-your-television market
which requires no more than a television, a video telephone, and POTS, the
industry acronym for plain old telephone service.

The Air Force is
testing the latter. According to Col. David L. Rakestraw, director of
technology at the Air Force Communications Agency, "because they are so
easy to set up and use, video phones are an excellent way for the Air Force to
add a video dimension to phone calls home."

Moreover, the
television-based systems cost no more for line transmission than a standard
voice call.

Whether consumers
on a large scale will finally be attracted to video telephone technology
remains to be seen. The technology does seem to have found a niche among those
Air Force members who have taken part in the Air Force trials.

After seeing and
speaking to his wife in Hawaii from his deployed location in Turkey, SSgt.
Lionel Price remarked, "I have been blessed to take part in this."

The telephone probably ranks with television
and the computer as one of the most significant devices of the 20th century -
at least, in terms of its impact on the way we work and play. It's no
surprise, then, that a good many articles have been written to assess the
future of this device.

Most of them were remarkably correct - except
when it came to one potential use they all predicted.

YESTERDAY

In the 1950s, when computer technology was
first being integrated into telephone networks, all kinds of new possibilities
were presented to the research scientists at organizations such as Bell Labs
and Northern Telecom (formerly known as "Northern Electric" -
editor).

Consider the August, 1958, Popular Mechanics
article, "Miracles Ahead on Your Telephone." It suggested that
telephones of the future would include "loudspeakers"
(speakerphones), the ability to send calls automatically to another number
(call forwarding) and a special "talk back" capability to let
callers leave a message (voice mail.) The article also envisioned a
"robot watchdog" linked to your telephone that would call the
police, fire department or other contact should a problem be detected in the
home - today's burglar alarm system.

Such accuracy in prediction was quite typical.
In the mid-1950s, when telephones still used the rotary dial, there were
widespread reports about the "push-button phone of the future."
There were also many articles-- such as the one in Changing Times in May, 1960
("What's Happening with the Telephone") -- predicting the day would
come when most people would be able to dial telephone numbers anywhere in the
world. Keep in mind that this was at a time when many calls, even to someone
down the street, had to go through a switchboard operator. The same article
also forecast that, one day, businesses would use telephones for
"transmitting drawings, blueprints, balance sheets..." (today's fax
machine). It even said that "the ultimate in phones will be the
carry-it-with-you instrument" that could be answered from anywhere - the
cell phone!

All these articles made one further prediction,
and that was the one that gained the most attention - the concept of the
videophone. The otherwise-accurate Changing Times piece said a small TV would
soon be found in the typical telephone, so that "you won't have to guess
who's calling - you'll be able to see for yourself."

The videophone wasn't just a concept.
Demonstration models were built and gained a huge degree of attention. The
1964 World's Fair in New York saw the launch of AT&T's PicturePhone - a
device consisting of a telephone handset and a small, matching TV. Suddenly,
video telephones were to be real, and accessible to everyone.

That is, anyone with a deep pocket. AT&T
first set up the phones in public buildings in New York, Washington and
Chicago, charging people $21 (about U.S.$111 in 1999 dollars) to make a
three-minute PicturePhone call. Soon, the company began to introduce it into
the corporate world. In 1965, BusinessWeek reported on PicturePhone use at
Union Carbide, predicting that company executives were "getting a taste
of communicating the way the majority of executives may be doing it 10 or 15
years from now."

At the time, most people seemed to assume that
broader use was imminent, and they imagined even more sophisticated devices to
come. Science Digest in March, 1965, noted talk of an "ultimate
telephone," the size of a pack of cigarettes, that would carry both voice
and video and could be used anywhere. A cell-phone videophone!

TODAY

In fact, the PicturePhone died a quick death
soon after its introduction, and video conferencing is still a marginal
activity in the corporate world. Technology companies have struggled for years
to come up with some type of television-based telephone system but the
results, until recently, have been disappointing or very expensive.

The biggest problem is quite simple -- global
telecommunication systems just haven't been equipped to handle the huge
volumes of data that such technology requires. The August, 1958, issue of
Popular Mechanics was bang on when it noted: "one hurdle to practical TV
phones is the amount of electronic information necessary for transmitting
voice and picture..." To a degree, that hurdle is still with us today.

Yes, you can find video-conferencing equipment
in the offices of many major corporations, but it's costly. Many of those
companies have spent upwards of $15,000 to equip their boardrooms with the
cameras, audio equipment and high speed telecommunication lines necessary for
video conferences. Certainly this technology is not yet widely available to
the average citizen.

TOMORROW

Will we ever see the concept of the
PicturePhone revived? Two factors suggest that it's possible.

First, expect technologies that will let us
receive huge amounts of data in our home, a necessity for a crystal-clear
PicturePhone call. It is said that researchers at Northern Telecom, AT&T
and elsewhere have figured out how to send the entire Encyclopedia Britannica
from coast to coast in three seconds. That type of telecommunication
capability, available to the home at inexpensive rates, would make the
PicturePhone a practical reality.

Second, there is constant innovation in Silicon
Valley, with companies working on ways for people to use their existing
telephones for video conferencing. Take InfoView, a small California firm.
They've developed a small camera device that sits on top of your television.
Plug it into your telephone and TV, and the long-lost promise of the
PicturePhone has suddenly reappeared. Dial a friend who also has an Infoview,
press a button and the two of you are doing a PicturePhone-type call. The most
fascinating thing? The device costs U.S.$399 - a fraction of the cost of any
other telephone-based videoconferencing system available to individuals today.

Perhaps the PicturePhone itself will be
revived, proving that the concept itself was right - just thirty or so years
ahead of its time.

* * * * * * * * *
Jim Carroll is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Surviving the
Information Age, which addresses issues of coping with technological
change. He has co-authored 24 other books which have sold some 650,000 copies,
including the national best-selling Canadian Internet Handbook. He can
be reached on the Internet at
jcarroll@jimcarroll.com,
and has an on-line site containing many other articles concerning the Internet
on the World Wide Web on the Internet at www.jimcarroll.com. He welcomes your
comments.

Tom Jezuit has contributed his
personal copy of the special edition, Bell Laboratories "Record" magazine
on the Picturephone® for this website!
This issue was dated May/June 1969 and gives some great technical and historical
information on the Picturephone®.
Soon after he sent, we scanned a total of 61 pages, converted the scans
into one large PDF file using OmniPro Optical Character Recognition software and
Adobe Acrobat to create the PDF file. Over 6 hours were spent scanning and
creating the PDF file and proof-reading but no guarantees are made as to its
accuracy.

Cover of magazine

To download this
Bell Labs "Record" magazine file on the Picturephone®,
right click on THIS LINK and choose "Save
target as . . . " (MS Internet Explorer). A big thanks to Tom for this
contribution!

Also, there is a pamphlet on the Picturephone® that you can view by clicking HERE.